6 simple ways to prove social media ROI to senior management

6 Instant B2B Social Media Lead Generation Improvements Read more: http://socialmediab2b.com/2011/09/social-media-lead-generation-tactics/#ixzz1ZGHYOdeY

Social media that doesn’t drive revenue doesn’t last. As B2B marketers, focusing on generating leads and revenue is our top priority. Social media can help. It can help reduce cost of customer acquisition and provide sustainable long-term lead flow. As a marketer who is already leveraging social media, how do you supercharge your efforts to make sure that you maximize leads from your social media marketing time investment?

Their are tons of approaches to help do this, but let’s start with six that can provide an instant boost to your social media lead generation efforts.

6 Instant B2B Social Media Lead Generation Improvements

1. Add a Call-to-action to your Business Blog –

One of the biggest mistakes B2B marketers make is forgetting to include a call-to-action on their blog. Have an upcoming webinar that you are using to drive leads? Put a link or image to drive registration in your blog sidebar or at the end of blog posts.

2. Share Lead Generation Offers in Social Media –

Social media purists would tell you that tweeting out a landing page to an ebook or product demo shouldn’t happen. They are wrong. Prospects that have opted into your social media content want more information about industry best practices and your business. Sometimes this might be from a blog post or an email. Other times it will be from a more hearty lead generation offer. Go ahead and start sharing these in social media.

3. Test Paid Methods of Building Social Media Reach –

Social media advertising is an interesting beast. Beyond doing pay-per-click lead generation, marketers can also use tools like Facebook’s promoted stories to increase the number of likes on a Facebook Page. The benefit to paying for reach is that unlikes of social media accounts is fairly low. So instead of paying per lead, B2B marketers can pay for a fan or follower that has the potential to drive multiple leads over their lifetime as a connection. You will need to do some math to determine how many leads a follower or fan generates for your business over their lifetime, but that is another post for another time.

4. Follow, Friend, and Connect -

You have to have social media connections to see and spread your content in order to generate leads. A simple way to get more social media connections is to search for related connections on a social network and then connect with them. Taking the simple action of connecting exposes your social media accounts to new connections and results in reach growth over time.

5.  Leverage Email –

Email is social. Make sure to include links in your email to make it easy for email list members to connect with your business in social media.

6. Analyze Offers –

Marketing without data crunching only results in wasted effort. Look at your lead generation offers and see how they perform in different social media channels. Use this data to promote the best performing offers by channel. This should increase your overall lead flow by channel by making simple changes.

We cover this topic in MUCH more detail in The B2B Social Media Book, but these are a few simple action items to get started. What other lead generation suggestions would you make for B2B companies?

Read more: http://socialmediab2b.com/2011/09/social-media-lead-generation-tactics/#ixzz1ZGHIZSRM

Digital marketing complaints top 5k

Costa looks for local touch in stores

Getting The Social Customer To Buy

Shopping is a social act. We’d like to think that it’s the perfect fit for Social Media. Is it?

Between us friends, I’ve shifted and changed my presentations on Digital Marketing in the past few months. It has moved away (almost completely) from what brands either should be doing in the Digital Marketing and how to think about the space to being one hundred percent customer focused. I wish I had the source for the following thought, but someone recently said that this is the first time in the history of Marketing that the consumers are ahead of the marketers.

It’s true.

What are brands really up to?

• They’re asking consumers to “like” them on Facebook while few actually make an effort to connect to those individuals on their own spaces.
• They’re asking customers to subscribe to the RSS feeds of their Blogs or share their content, while the brand editors spend zero time engaging in the comments on the Blogs being created by their customers.
• They’re looking for customers to follow them on Twitter, but don’t actually push beyond their own tweetstream to build affinity and loyalty.
• They’re asking customers to watch their videos on YouTube, but few brands are doing anything unique on the channel. It’s mostly their traditional advertising or a longer version of a TV ad.

Social Media is not a destination.

The greatest struggle facing brands is the paradigm shift away from Social Media being a destination to Social Media being everywhere - a simple and true part of their lives. Brands make the (wrong) assumption that people will go to Facebook, like their brand, do something on the wall, then the brand will be in a better consideration space for purchase further down the sales funnel.

Create a new scenario…

Here’s some fiction for you: Sara needs a new sun dress. She goes online and does some research. She posts some options up on Facebook and asks her friends on Twitter to check it out and help her decide. Then, she heads down the store (if she hasn’t made the purchase online) to buy the dress. Sounds realistic, doesn’t it? It’s only half of the story. Let’s try again: Sara needs a new sun dress. She does some online research, posts some options on Facebook and tweets them up. Her friend, Mandy, sees the tweet and they text each other to head over to the mall together. While strolling through the mall, they’re both not only chatting to one another, but they’re connected. They’re responding to text messages, they’re being alerted to Facebook and Twitter updates, they’re laughing at posts and - maybe - they’re even checking in with Foursquare to see who else is around. While in the store, they notice a couple of other dresses, they snap some pictures and post them, but then a question comes up about the materials that were used to make the dress. Sara and Mandy do some quick online searches… nothing. They realize that the brand is on Twitter so they ask the brand directly…

…and so the story goes.

The new consumer is not linear. They are scattered. They are connected - not only to one another, but to the world - and their Social Media engagement is highly untethered. I’m often critical of brands who try to make Digital Marketing bend to their will instead of spending the time, effort and having the patience to build valuable credibility (which leads to loyalty). This is another prime example of that: your consumer is social… much more social than they have ever been before, but it’s not a linear relationship (like the one they probably have with your flyers or coupons or five years ago with a website) and you’re not going to be able to make them bend to your will, either. Facebook is not a destination in their worlds. Facebook is everywhere and anywhere.

This is not my consumer.

There are many brands who feel like smartphones, iPads and Social Media have no direct impact on them, because this type of consumer is not in their demographic. Those same people used to wonder why they need a website. Whether or not this is a current part of your customer’s media and technology diet is irrelevant because it will be. The question is how long? Ten years? Five years? Two years? It’s hard to say, but my gut says less than five years and closer to two years. Most brands are already in planning for next year, so this means it needs to get on the business slate now. Today.

Ask yourself this: are you really ready for the social customer (as they are and not as you would like them to be)?

(Source: twistimage.com)

Tis the season for christmas sales strategy

Are your shoes too big to fill?

Why Do B2B Marketers Need Social Media to Thrive Read more: http://socialmediab2b.com/2011/08/b2b-social-media-marketing/#ixzz1W8nGbOrZ

How multiple messages catch the mind's eye